


The spying king

by Unaflor



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Cardan spies on Jude, F/M, He doesn't know he's creepy, He has no consideration whatsoever on other's people privacy, Jude would be pissed off if she knew, post the wicked king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 21:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unaflor/pseuds/Unaflor
Summary: Spoilers from The Wicked King.Cardan spies on Jude right after the exile.





	The spying king

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laura_sommeils](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laura_sommeils/gifts).



> After I finished reading the book I needed Jude to have her own time to process what happened and at the same time, I needed Cardan to acknowledge what he did. A friend told me "It's obvious he did it to protect her" and I can't shake that idea off. So this is, in part, her fault.
> 
> Warnings: I owe nothing.  
> Also: Spying on people is WRONG.

In the very center of Cardan's hand there's this tiny  crystal ball he got in exchange of a royal eyelash. It's so light he wouldn't feel it at all if it wasn't because it is also very warm. Cardan carries it with him at all times, but he only gets it from inside of the inner pocket of his trousers when he's sure he's alone in his room.

That's when he can see how she's doing. Inside of the quartz crystal, Jude looks small and he can see how she gets wet under the rain, very still, outside of a house like he has never seen one before, square and white, with two front windows and a small rectangular door, which is a weird shape for a door anyway.

He wonders if she is trying to endure coldness to become stronger and he doesn't dare to think about it much more, because if he considered she is getting wet and cold because she doesn't care about anything anymore now that everyone seemed to have betrayed her, something inside his chest would ache and shatter.

Fairies can't lie, but that doesn't mean they can't deceive themselves. And Cardan is very good at deceiving. He had to be. For his own sake. And for Jude's.

He watches her staying in the same position until all her clothes are soaking wet and Vivienne comes out running to take her sister in. She's almost gentle. She almost takes it seriously and Cardan can see how she is chatting cheerfully all the way in, even if he can't hear what she's saying and Jude seems not to hear her neither. He grits his teeth putting the quartz crystal ball away because he can barely control his fury and he's not sure if he's more angry with Jude for being this defeated, weak excuse of a mortal or with himself for turning the most fierced person he has ever known into _this_.

The night of her exile, he had seen her weeping until her eyes were sore, red and tearless, walking the weirdest paths at night, bathed in the yellow light of floating balls sticked to the floor by heavy metal sticks. He had seen her walking and walking the whole night long until she catched a black and yellow carriage that took her to her sister's house. He had seen her taking her shoes out and stare at the blisters and the blood in her feet as if it was something that happened to someone else, and yet he had known that none of it was enough to keep his wife from trying to rule the world the next morning. Although she didn't.

In her first day of exile, Cardan saw Jude staying in bed, refusing to eat and refusing to move. When Vivienne loudly suggested Oak to jump on Jude's bed, she still did not move, allowing Oak to hit her hands, arms and legs with his hooves. Even allowing him to fall on top of her, all soundless laughter that would have made Cardan smile if he wasn't busy feeling so miserable. It occurred to him this was the one and only time Jude wouldn't be able to lie to him, and he knew how much she'd hate it if she ever found out he had seen her in her earnest, weakest self that, for once, had nothing to do with her being a mortal.

The next days, Cardan wishes he could swap places with Vivienne for fifteen minutes. He would find what to say to take that stubborn exiled queen of Fairy out of her bed to eat something. Maybe it would be enough if he just showed her his face. He wondered if she would be strong enough to stab him or if she’d agree on having dinner first if he promised to wait for it without running away. Mostly, he wondered how long can a human survive without food. Clearly, whatever Vivienne was trying to do was failing, even sending Oak with sandwiches (mostly because by the time he’d got to the room, the sandwiches had been already eaten).

During those days it rains so heavily in Fairy that classes get cancelled, Locke protests at least twice and Cardan gets more presents than he ever did. What saves the gentry is not the presents, though, but Jude, who that very night gets so mad at whatever Vivienne says that she frowns and shouts and throws all sort of perplexing stuff in all sort of also perplexing directions. At the end she starts crying again, as she did during the first night, but this time Oak cries too, and that makes her stop. Cardan watches them hugging on the floor and for the first time feels it's not right to intrude in Jude's private life like that. Still, he watches and watches, from his bed, feeling that tight knot in his chest from seeing in others what he had never had for himself.

At the end, Jude accepts getting lots of colourful rings in a bowl that Oak gives her and eats them after pouring milk on them from a simple glass bottle without any ornaments on it.

After that she gets out of bed when her siblings ask her to and she does simple things: she takes showers that dry Cardan's mouth and turn his dark eyes darker; she eats whatever Vivienne prepares for her and drinks lots of water and tea, still so skinny that she looks as she would break only by being stared at long enough; she sits in front of a box that bring all sorts of lights to her face, sometimes she talks back to Vivienne.

At some point she starts giving Oak sword lessons he doesn't take very seriously and Cardan remember what is to breath again. She's safe, from Fairy and from herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Heya! If you got to this point, I'd REALLY like to know what you think of it, whatever that is. Just be kind, please (:


End file.
